Objectives

The goal of the "Give More. Spend Less." Holiday Campaign was to promote holiday décor and food products available at Family Dollar stores. This strategy included using a series of ten videos featuring a pair of experts in these spaces, Food Network Chef Pat Neely and TV-style expert Lloyd Boston. The videos follow the duo as they prepare Neely's home to host a holiday party, showcasing the collection of holiday-themed home décor and demonstrating cooking recipes, with each item and ingredient available at Family Dollar for a great price; each video even ends with a prompt for viewers to text to receive in-store savings. The campaign's strategy was to utilize the insights of these celebrity experts to show that creating a stylish, sophisticated holiday space doesn't have to be expensive, reinforcing the notion that consumers can "Give More", and yet "Spend Less". The campaign was capped off with a toy box sweepstakes, with a promotional video starring a kid stocking up on the season's hottest toys at Family Dollar. The outcome: Family Dollar was able to foster a more intimate brand-consumer interaction, showing how their products can liven up the holiday experience, during a time when consumer decisions are especially emotionally driven. Campaign videos garnered over 2.3 million views and resulted in more than 18 million impressions across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Strategy and Execution

The Family Dollar 'Give More. Spend Less.' Campaign deserves to win this category because it was a unique initiative that established deep connections with viewers across a series of videos. To achieve this goal, Family Dollar did the following:

• Enlisted the help of two experts in the space of food and style, celebrity chef Pat Neely (Food Network's Down Home with the Neelys) and TV-style correspondent Lloyd Boston (NBC's The Today Show)
• Allowing consumers a look into the home of chef Pat Neely, as it is transformed into a holiday party hosting space, using items available at Family Dollar.
• Having Pat Neely uses ingredients from Family Dollar's to create a few of his favorite holiday food recipes, showing how Family Dollar can be a part of creating a delicious holiday meal
• Giving Lloyd Boston the reigns to use his style expertise to cultivate a chic, sophisticated holiday theme in several spaces throughout Neely's home. In each case, he spoke to why he chose the home décor items he uses, while noting their budget-friendly price
• Creating an overarching theme for the campaign, which is that consumers can give more by spending less at Family Dollar. They wanted to show that creating an elegantly decorated home during the holidays could be had for less
• Promoting viewer interaction by providing a prompt at the conclusion of each video for viewers to text and receive special in-store savings. This gives viewers a reward for watching, and encourages them to watch other videos in the series
• Capping off the campaign with a sweepstakes, which although having a related yet separate theme in holiday gifts, creates the last touch point to include all members of a family in it's campaign
• Bringing together style, food, and savings for a combination that is very appealing to consumers, and effective for brands during the holidays; reinforcing the themes of family, friends, and food, which is are huge consumer focuses during the holiday season

These tactics proved to be successful for Family Dollar, resulting in 2,269,104 views across social media and the company blog to go along with 72,597 engagements. Total impressions for the 'Give More. Spend Less' campaign reached 18,764,260. This data proves that the tactics and strategy used by Family Dollar in this campaign worked well, and resulted in a fine holiday video campaign worthy of award consideration.

Media